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In the late nineties a soul singer was getting rave reviews for his fresh-sounding single … until it was revealed that the singer in question was actually old fart Cliff Richard, and the record was promptly taken off air. goo.gl/DWU3NO

Nicky Bullard has a right to be concerned,
people are living longer.
especially in the UK, where over 50% of the population was officially over 50 a couple of years ago.
What does that mean?

It means that 45% of employees in Adland haven’t a clue what resonates with over half the market.
because they don’t have that lived experience. They don’t think like a 50+
so how the hell do they expect to communicate effectively?

Then look at the ones that are still in the game.
The crowd that have to pretend to be younger for fear of losing their jobs.
Some look stupid, some act stupid, some probably feel stupid,
but some still think they’re the best thing since sliced bread!.
What a painful charade to have to live up to every morning.

So, based on 92% of all communication not communicating
and 5% of the industry definitely working,
is the other 45% working on the remaining 3% of the business?
No wonder the young ones are having such a great time!
Good luck to them! They might as well enjoy it while they can!

It doesn’t last, because it’s a shallow business made shallower by lack of experienced people.
that’s sadly why (Fact) every year more young people are turning away from the ad industry in the UK
because they see no long term future in it and don’t want to end up with washed-up careers at 50.

But cheer-up, If you think the industry is ageist in the UK just listen to this:-
I was told recently “You know in Russia you’re considered past it in Advertising by the age of 35!”

This is a great post Dave, and a huge topic for advertising. The amount of talent being thrown out of this business is outrageous.

And for an industry currently obsessed with writing its diversity wrongs, it’s huge elephant in the room.

Over 25% of the UK working population are over 50, I wonder if ad agency creative departments are anywhere near this figure.

The business has to get its head around the idea of over 50, god even over 40s actually working on business, writing, art directing, coming up with ideas, not just sitting in board rooms.

I liked Ben Kay’s take a while back when he was comparing the amazing creative output of artists, architects, film directors, musicians, authors, many of whom do by far their best work into their 50s and 60s and even older.

That’s a really good thought Vic.
Sportsman are burned out at 35, fair enough their job is all about their bodies.
But our job isn’t about our bodies, quite the opposite, it’s about our minds.
And they get better with age and experience

Old people voted for Trump, old people voted for Brexit, in Switzerland they even voted for young people having to do military sevices. Of course there are several outstanding individuals, but in general old farts are blamed legitimately. It’s all their fault.

Hi John, we’re not doing too bad. Older and working-class are well represented, female and ethnic minority background we would like to be better represented. We’re a tiny place, so it’s more difficult to be a representative sample of the population.

I agree strongly with the anti-agist remarks, but simply cannot see “old fart” as being anything like the other groups. You don’t change race or sex or religion for the most part, but everyone grows old. Few embrace it (most of us old farts hate our “getting better, not older” peers).

The ad industry makes its money marketing to youth. If they made their money selling Polident, young people wouldn’t be able to get a job in the industry. This wouldn’t be an issue, but our consumption-driven economy runs on crap, and it’s harder to sell crap to old people.

I love reading this blog and get a kick out of stories about big ad campaigns, but that’s the glamour side of advertising. I’m pretty sure most ads are still about tricking people into buying products they don’t need and, for the most part, you couldn’t pay an older person to take off your hands.

And by the way, the old farts have money to buy all the products advertising people want to sell. Young people may have energy and ideas, but usually no money. Let’s get rid of the young who suck at being good consumers

‘Nielsen calls them ““The most valuable generation in the history of marketing.” Forbes calls them “The most ignored wealthy people in the history of marketing.” Even though they control about 70% of the nation’s wealth and are responsible for over half of consumer spending, they are the target for only 10% of marketing activity. ‘

Open on a group of bespectacled shaven-headed admen sitting around a table in a refrigerated room.
Breathing cold steam into the air as they clutch their metal tin-openers, one of them points to a chart.
It has an image of an old unshaven man (Steptoe’s dad) wearing a nightcap checking his bank account under candlelight
whilst grimacing to camera.
A person at the top of the table says:-
‘Any ideas on how we can prize the money out of this old git?”

Hi John,
I think it’s what Paul Arden may have noted in one of his books
‘Whatever you think, think the opposite’ in a spread on ‘The stages of life.’ as
“the stage at which we all momentarily think we are young again…”
The pre Fix-O-Dent, pre-Steptoe stage before we all fall into the bottomless pit
To Hell with it all I say. Die Laughing!

I actually met a self-confessed miser in Moscow who was proud to be one,
He slept in a bed 50cm wide because he couldn’t see the point of sleeping in anything wider.
I’ve always believed you’re as young as you think you are.
However, there are some physical limitations as you get older that may be unavoidable.
My philosophy has always been live positively and hope to die gracefully.
Preferably not toothless, but I suppose there’s always the possibility of becoming a champion gurner.

My personal view: if more of the older and wiser people that I work with could keep reminding me that they are giving me the benefit of their experience – and some bits of it might work for me and my context, and some bits won’t – then I think I could keep that in my head as being the MAIN message. The important bit. The bit I should be listening to and learning from.

I wouldn’t get sidetracked wondering why, for example, they might insist that I do all my ‘tough conversations’ on the spot and face to face.

Even though I have always processed information by writing it down, so I appreciate if I am given a (written) heads up that someone wants to speak to me and why, so that I can think about that topic and write something down, before meeting.

I wouldn’t go home wondering why I still don’t seem to be ‘getting it’, even though I feel like I’m understanding more and more.

If more of the older (and younger – this cuts both ways!!) people I need to work with just took a moment to tell me not just WHAT they are doing, but WHY, this would help me.

What would be even more helpful would be if they reminded me that they are only making a suggestion, based on what they know. I can take from it bits I find useful, and I should tell them what I disagree with and why.

That’s when a team boss gets the most from his or her team.

When the benefit of experience can be woven in with the new ideas that some of the younger lot might have, based on their new and different context.

In brainstorms, I have seen an older/more senior member of the team dismiss a younger person’s view SO MANY TIMES. It is because their experience is telling them it won’t work. But they don’t explain that.

So the younger person walks out the brainstorm only knowing they did something wrong. And in the next brainstorm, they don’t talk.

That bit actually breaks my heart a bit. (Because I am an emotional and creative thinker, rather than an entirely practical and logical one)

Those are really good points Sally, but……
IMHO the onus is on the student as much as the teacher.
You know what you need to learn.
So when you say – “If more of the older (and younger – this cuts both ways!!) people I need to work with just took a moment to tell me not just WHAT they are doing, but WHY, this would help me.”
Why don’t you take them aside and ask them exactly that question?
That’s what I always used to do when I was a youngster.
That’s what my wife tells me she used to do.
That’s what I’ve always taught my kids to do.
Ask.

To add – it’s worth remembering that for some people, the world of work is the first place they come across someone older who ‘disciplines’ them, and in a different or harder way than their parents and teachers did.

Some of these younger generations went to school at a time when teachers weren’t allowed to discipline, and government policy was about being nice, nice nice to kids.

So you *might* (you also might not, if they don’t care or notice) just be scaring the cr*p out of them, while they adjust to something they’ve not experienced before.

I definitely did, for at least the first five years of my career. Then somewhere along the line I picked up the impression I shouldn’t still be asking questions.

That ‘at my level’ I should know the answer. And a few people said ‘I am too busy for you’, without going on to say when they might be less busy and able to talk.

These people were senior to me, and so I thought I must be doing it wrong, not them. But with people who work into me, I have never been scared to ask them loads (and loads!) of questions. Usually I have to, because I have a client who wants to reach somebody in their 20s – something I, sadly, am no longer.

Every time I have asked a younger team member loads of questions (but giving them advance warning, so they have time to research and think about it, should they so wish) they have loved it.

That may not be to do with old and young Sally.
That may be to do with intelligent or not.
In my experience there as many stupid people of all ages, races, sexes, colours, nationalities, classes, and sexual orientations.
There are also as many intelligent people.
Seek out the intelligent ones, ignore the stupid ones, and don’t look for a pattern

Ms. Brown, while almost none of the 7,000 resumes I wrote were for folks seeking advertising jobs, there are some truisms I gleaned from other industries that you might find helpful.

>People who aren’t helpful to younger employees are often incapable of helping. They’re not really experts, have no real insights, and don’t want you to know that.

>Process is mostly about control, not output.

>Amateurs and the self-employed have ‘ways of doing things.’ Real pros are productive no matter how restrictive the box they’re put in.

Etc. I’ve learned lots from this blog, but just as important, I’ve learned nothing that would dissuade me from thinking that ad agencies are any less dysfunctional than any other employer in this Wall Street driven world.

Your best strategy is to make being female and junior a plus. “I can only speak as a young woman…” is a great intro when there are no other young women present, and you’re a part of the demographic your agency is trying to reach. And if you get assigned to the Polident account, email me!

First, thank you both (Dave and Mark) for sharing your experiences with me. They both offer me something I can learn from.

But never stop asking questions if you’re still not convinced, right? So here goes…

I’ve been thinking about the comment ‘don’t look for a pattern’ ever since I read it. I’ve been turning it over in my mind.

Why would you stop looking for a pattern? Aren’t I reading this blog in order to look for a pattern? Looking for the patterns of behaviour and thinking that Dave has tested and learned from over the years, in order to try and use the successful bits?
And aren’t I doing that to try and ‘get ahead’ – i.e. avoid having to repeat some of that process myself, by gleaning some of it from the experience of someone older and wiser than me?

It’s survival of the fittest. The cleverest people in society know to watch their elders, learn from their successes and their mistakes, and make sure the next generation benefit from both. Darwin did some work on this.

OK, so your previous comment is ‘seek out the intelligent people, ignore the stupid.’

And here – IMHO – comes the problem. That is where you have got to with your experience. Your experience tells you it was enough for you to seek out intelligent people to get ahead – you could find enough of them.

I have a feeling that my generation needs to learn that theory and MORE – and we need to do it quickly. Because I’m not convinced the next generation will find enough intelligent people to learn from.

Dave was (possibly – I stand to be corrected) brought up in a time of greater meritocracy. If you were clever, you got ahead. Class didn’t get in the way as much. Money didn’t obscure things as much.

Right now, it isn’t the cleverest people getting ahead – it’s the ones with the most money, the best connections, or the right kind of education to suit them.

In fact, there are more stupid people getting into real power. These are people whose short term thinking is OK for a majority of voters, and the longer term thinkers haven’t yet turned their attention to just how powerful the strength of feeling is among that majority of voters. How scared they are. How bewildered. So the longer term thinkers aren’t turning much of their resource into addressing that.

One of the brightest friends I have – one who never stops asking questions and is always happy to explain his position and experience, and does so very well – talked at university about becoming a maths teacher.

But then he got offered loads of money to go work for a bank, so he went to work for a bank. When the crash happened, he got made redundant, and he talked about going to be a maths teacher again. But then the markets picked back up again and he went back to the city. He isn’t entirely happy in his job, but he is comforted by the fact that at least he makes tonnes of money.

You might try to dismiss that as just one bloke – and maybe he’s not a very ‘nice’ bloke. Or maybe he’s not that clever after all. But I can tell you that isn’t the case, and I can tell you that I have a similar story for nearly every single one of my friends from university.

If none of them is helping to improve the next generation – help them learn from mistakes and successes already made – does that mean society might take a step backwards, just like ad agencies might by dismissing the elders as ‘old farts’? A missed opportunity for an ad agency is a shame. A missed opportunity for a generation is a disaster.

At 71 i run a tech gadget design and manufacturing company selling innovative products to corporations for give-aways?
My staff of 30 are all less than 50% of my age, some just 30%
I have years of experience that they are learning from and i see or hear no hints that they are ready to move me on and run the show themselves.
I will know when its time before they do!

Hi Sally, Hi Mark,
I teach students English as a second language now. I see teaching as a two way process. I teach them and they teach me. I believe in being equal partners in the process. So when they come across a word they don’t know and they ask me “What does that mean?” I throw the question back at them and ask them “What do you think it means?” and nine times out of ten they are right. I find this the greatest pleasure in teaching because it builds their confidence in themselves and teaching people to use their own initiative actually improves their language skills far quicker than hammering them with grammar because we don’t talk in “Grammar” just like we don’t use a Haynes Car Repair Manual to drive a car. All too often people think a teacher should know everything like the Haynes Manual, which is as absurd as suggesting owning a paintbrush makes you Pablo Picasso.